by Jade Alters
From within the inferno, bolts of yellow lightning jump out in every direction. They blast holes in the walls and ceiling, before crackling out into the sky below the Academy. Helena’s storm dances all around us, launching shards of crystalline magic free. The only sign of Helena now is the scream scratching out from inside the flaming tornado. A troop of instructors gather around her, as close as they can get without suffering fatal burns. A few students sprint off with smoking dress-trains or ash smears on their faces. Smoke plumes up into the ceiling and ripples out to darken the whole Ballroom while the instructors prepare to neutralize her, if they can. The looks on most of their faces betray a certain doubt on the subject.
“Holy shit! Emery, come on, she’s going to bring the whole place down!” Hoster screams over the panicked wails that fill the Ballroom.
“No, she’s not,” I answer, though she most certainly will. I’ve never heard of a Witch casting two spells of different natures at once. I’m fairly certain no one has.
At the first sign of life-threatening danger, I feel myself change. It’s not exactly a reversion to the old Emery, more just a version of myself who shares many of her qualities. Cold. Focused. Driven. But in place of my family’s ultimately undefeatable goal of self-preservation is the will to save my friend. I snap my fingers.
Emery,
“Helena!” I scream over her surge of heat and lightning. My voice echoes out, hollow, across the eye of a rosy-purple stardust vortex. It’s all I could come up with fast enough, that was vast enough to contain Helena’s raw power. My own personal rendition of Mother’s conference space. It was the size of a pea-shaped light orb to everyone back in the Prismatic Ballroom. To Helena and I, inside, it’s the size of ten Rec Fields. “Helena! Answer me! Let me know you’re here!”
“Emery!” Helena whimpers back “I’m sorry… I just… He didn’t…”
“I know, I know,” I promise her. “Rock didn’t feel bad for you. He did want to dance with you. I’m coming over to you.” I put a hand over my eyes to shield them from the brightness of plasma, jumping from her fiery tornado.
“Don’t! I don’t know how to stop!” Helena warns me.
“You will. When I get close enough, you’ll stop. I know it,” I assure her. I take another step across the invisible platform of my conference space.
“I’m so stupid! I…I let them get to me an-”
“Stop right there! You’re the farthest thing from stupid!” I scream back. A little tendril of flame lashes out at me as I reach the wall of her fire. It sears a streak through the side of my dress, but it doesn’t burn me. I steel my nerves to stop from flinching back, and take another step forward. “Those fuckers deserved everything you gave them and more!”
“I…I’m not supposed to act this way… I’m a Core Line Witch… I’ve ruined things for us.” I shake my head, whether or not she can see me, as I forge ahead through the flame. With every step I take, a few flaming tongues lick across me. They singe away the edges of my dress just before the fire recedes a little more, towards Helena. I can see her outline not far ahead of me. Lightning crackles by over my shoulder, spreading out to light the stardust cloud around us.
“And it’s okay for people to act the way they did?” I counter, “Look at yourself, Helena. I mean it, really look.” I can tell Helena complies by the calming of the fire around her. It swirls in, close to her body. The lightning stops shooting out of her, and starts jumping around her. “You’re Helena Bartos. No matter what they say, you’re the most powerful Witch they’ve ever seen. They’re afraid of you. Don’t you be afraid of you. Be proud.”
“I…can’t…” Helena whimpers. The flames and lightning flare up around her, but I come closer. Close enough to reach out and grab her shoulders.
“With everything you’ve made of yourself…that you can do anything is one of the few things I’m sure of,” I tell her. I pull her in. Fire turns to smog. Lightning disperses above us. I hug Helena until her eyes run dry on my shoulders.
“Emery…”
“Don’t you thank me. This is me thanking you,” I stop her. I let her whimper a few more seconds. I won’t realize fully until later how ridiculous it is. A girl with a magical warhead inside her, reduced to a sniffling child. For now, I just hug my friend. “When we go back…they’re going to detain you,” I warn her.
“I know… Do it now, before I hesitate,” Helena says. Her voice is fortified with new strength. She lets me go to wipe her eyes and nose.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Helena says. I snap my fingers.
“They’re back! Get her!” a voice crackles.
My eyes don’t even have a chance to adjust to the damaged lighting of the Prismatic Ballroom before bodies swarm us. Panicked fingers rip us apart and drag us to opposite corners of the Ballroom. The last thing I can see, before I’m dragged through the double doors we came through, is Helena reaching for me. I reach back, right up until crystalline doors that have lost their shine shut me outside.
Missing Witch
Hoster,
The Broken Academy, Chamber of the Six
I find, as I lock my shoulders between the intersection of two walls, that the Chamber of the Six does, in fact, have corners. I know the Council can’t see or hear me, but the corner seems the best place to keep from tripping any magical alarms. They seem a little preoccupied to notice anything besides the matter at hand, anyway. The Heritage Ball incident.
I might be one of the few students that’s stood anywhere inside it other than the shimmering blue platform in the center of their stony conference table. Well, stood is putting it loosely. I float on the other side of a spiritual looking glass, the Blue Plane, just outside the gathering of the six most powerful beings in the Broken Academy. At least I thought they were the six most powerful. We all did. That was before Helena. It strikes a nerve in the back of my mind that the Six seem just as surprised, with each uneasy suggestion they trade.
“Where is the girl now?” Fey Rorelia asks. Even her songlike tone shifts through a key of tension.
“She is in her room-”
“Her room?” Chief Botan of the Ahwahneechee shifters blurts over Sorceress Lily. “You’ve escorted her back to her room like she broke a window? The girl almost-”
“I’m well aware of what the girl almost did,” Lily bites. “You’ll recall that her roommate Emery Dalshak was able to contain Helena and neutralize her with a trick that took seconds, and no violence. I doubt even we could have done so much without collateral damage. Two of my trusted Warlocks guard the door to her room, but trust me: we’re all safer for her being allowed to stay with Emery.” The Council goes silent in thought. A few heads bob in hesitant concession.
“I think the concern the Chief means to express is…” Dragonlord Thise does her best to convert the unease of five people into words. “What will be done to prevent further incidents like this? We can’t entrust Helena’s containment purely to Emery Dalshak. Such a task to ask of a child already…troubled. Who knows if she’s even capable of doing what she did again?” The Dragonlord’s question causes her eyes to wander, to the one person who might be able to answer it. She gives a sideways glance to Magister Reynold, the closest to Emery amongst them. If only I could answer. Emery can do it. If she could hear this ridiculous third-party debate of someone else’s fate, she would insist. She would demand.
“The depths of Emery’s abilities are a mystery even to me. Besides, I think all of us suffer the same fear towards Helena… She’s shattered all frame of reference for what a Witch can do. Am I wrong, Sorceress?” Reynold poses. The second she hears Helena’s name, Lily’s eyes wander to the empty blue platform at the center of their stone table. I know what she’s thinking, because I share the thought. Helena should be here. She should get a voice in all of this. That she’s absent only goes to prove what the Magister is saying.
“You’re…not wrong,” Lily admits.
“Forgive those of us unversed
in the ways of magic and spells,” VampKing Lucidous interjects, “but I’ll have to ask what you mean.” Lily shakes her head, unbelieving even of the words about to leave her lips.
“What Helena did…shouldn’t be…well, let’s say it hasn’t been done before,” she prefaces. None leaned closer to their table than those uninitiated: the VampKing and Chief Botan. I, myself, have to actively restrain myself from wandering closer to the table. “Witches and Warlocks use energy that’s already present in nature to cast spells… Heat in the air becomes fire. Electrical fields can be manipulated to form plasma-lightning. But tapping into one of these natural forces requires the focus of a person’s full magical nature - at least usually.”
“In other words, you can only cast one spell at a time,” the Chief concludes, calmer with some understanding.
“Yes,” Lily sighs, “Last night was the first documented time a Witch or Warlock cast two spells at once. It…should be impossible. I’d have said it was, if I didn’t see it myself.”
“And the average resident of the cities below would never believe a supernatural Academy floats over their heads,” Dragonlord Thise jumps in. “We should always seek to expand our minds before fearing the unknown.”
“So what do you suggest we do with Helena? Let her stay? Let the Dalshak girl manage her?” Fey Rorelia asks.
“Not quite. I’m not so naïve. Like all of our students, the girl needs to understand her powers before she can hope to control them, ” Thise says. In the ponderous silence of decision on how best to do this, the VampKing suggests:
“Let us send the girl to the Research Facility at Point Arena. They have the most advanced instruments to-”
“Absolutely not,” Lily cuts in. The edge in her voice might have bled me dry, had I been between her and the VampKing.
“Point Arena?” Reynold echoes. “I thought that facility was closed down in the tenure of the last Council?”
“It was. And it should have stayed closed,” Lily tells him.
“It was voted to reopen, under new management, several years ago,” Chief Botan fills Reynold in quietly, on the side.
“Will you voice your distaste for us right here, at the Council meeting?” Lucidous digs into Lily. “Me, Fey Rorelia, the Dragonlord? All of us, abominations, obsessed with pulling more abominations from their hellish Realms into our own?” Sorceress Lily’s nails etch white lines in the stone table on their way into a clenched fist. She sits up, as if to launch at the VampKing like a rabid animal. He doesn’t exactly respond, physically, but I notice a shift in his aura in the Blue Plane - a sharp change in intent. He’s ready to turn mischief into something much more fatal.
“If you two want to relive the outcome of that Council meeting, get the minutes from the secretary. As it stands, we are a Council of Six. Six votes decide the outcome of our decisions - let them not be based in hate. Not when the life of a student is concerned,” Thise pleads with them. It takes a few seconds, but Lily sinks back into her seat. Lucidous’ aura relaxes to something more docile. How quickly and extremely it shifts from one to the next leaves an imprint of horror on my mind.
“If not the Point Arena Facility…what is the best way to help Helena understand her powers?” Magister Reynold poses, once the threat of council-cide recedes.
“Let us take her back to the Grotto in Six Rivers,” Sorceress Lily suggests.
“You’ll understand my hesitation towards that plan,” the VampKing dares to object. But this time, Lily stays seated.
“I do. You think we’ll train her to be some kind of weapon of supremacy,” she paints out without hesitation or shame. “But how can even I train a Witch who can do what I cannot?” She waits for anyone to raise a voice in objection, to poke another hole in the idea. The quiet gives her leave to continue. “I just want her somewhere safe, away from people she can hurt, to explore her abilities. Six Rivers is home to all Core Lines of Witches and Warlocks… It’s where she grew up. Maybe the place will hold some answers for her.”
“It’s a hell of a lot safer than having her here,” Reynold shrugs, “If your people can contain her as well as Emery Dalshak.”
“In Six Rivers, she won’t have to be contained. There’s a reason it’s remained the nexus of Witches and Warlocks since the ancients. The place is so rife with natural energy, there’s no amount of magical destruction Helena could wreak that we couldn’t repair,” Lily explains. “Plus it’s big enough that she can stretch her wings without being seen or hurting anyone.”
“I second the motion,” Dragonlord Thise announces before the VampKing can get out whatever objection had opened his jaw.
“Third,” Reynold commits.
“I’m afraid I cannot offer my blessing on this one,” Chief Botan announces.
“Nor will I,” Lucidous adds. My eyes shoot to the last to cast her vote. Fey Rorelia. She’ll break the tie for better or worse. The longer she waits, the more seriously I consider possessing her, to make sure it’s for better. But God only knows what the Council would do to me if they caught me interfering with a vote, or spying on them for that matter.
“I say send the girl to Six Rivers,” Fey Rorelia announces. I relax my spectral shoulders. Who knew spiritual bodies could get so tense? “Let her master her abilities in a place free of discrimination and risk.”
“Very good,” Lily says, through her best attempt not to smile. “We will leave immediately.”
I don’t stick around for the adjournment of the meeting. If Sorceress Lily’s definition of immediately is the same as mine, then that’s exactly how I need to report to Emery.
Emery,
The Broken Academy, Room B-22
I keep one hand on Helena’s back, one on my temple. My fingers bunch up my skin in a wrinkled knot, almost until it bleeds. It’s all I can do to keep Mother from poking through. It seems she’s realized I’m stalling, with this horrendous new tactic of hers. She’s let our old connection alone, given up on reforging it. Instead, she prods at the weakest corners of my mind with a new one, just waiting to trick her way in. Every time she tries, it’s like running a cheese grater across my brain tissue. I’d be screaming if Helena hadn’t just fallen asleep. I won’t leave her side, and I won’t wake her up. Not when the Council could show up any second to drag her away. I could hardly believe it when Sorceress Lily had us escorted back to our room.
“They’re going...take her…” Hoster’s voice murmurs through the air.
“Hoster, I can’t see you,” I tell him.
“Oh.” At his will, a blue mist gathers around the floor, then swirls up into the shape of his Astral body. It’s funny, in a way, to see his spirit form still wearing the suit that’s on his physical one a few doors down. Right now, though, I hardly feel like laughing at anything. “They’re going to take her to Six Rivers. Sorceress Lily was able to convince the Council it was the best place for her to explore her abilities.”
“Six… shit,” I mutter.
“What? Isn’t that good?” Hoster asks.
“Not in the slightest. If they send her to Six Rivers, they’re throwing her straight into a hive of other Core Lines who hated her before we almost killed ten of their heirs. They already looked at her as... “ my eyes wander to Helena, passed out and draped over the side of her bed. The look of peace on her face, with what’s about to happen, drives a dagger deep in my heart. I could never bring myself to call her what they do. They’re the abominations. “After what she did yesterday, they’ll be afraid of her, too. These are dangerous, hateful people. They’ll act on it while she’s alone.”
“Won’t she be with her family?” Hoster asks.
“Just her mom and dad. That’s not nearly enough to fend off three other lines of Core Witches and Warlocks. No, she has to stay here,” I insist.
“We have to figure out a way to make that happen soon. Like right now. Lily said they were going to take her im-”
“We’re here on order of Sorceress Lily,” a voice booms through m
y door. The thunderous knock that follows ruptures my world. It stirs Helena from her sleep. It almost lowers my barrier against Mother. It threatens to drag my moral lifeline, my best friend, away from me. “We’re here to…” I don’t hear the rest of what he’s here to do. I spring off my bed. I run both hands up through my hair, clutching clumps of what the fuck do I do?
“Emery, let me-”
“Hoster, get the hell out of here. I might need you to save me - both of us, later,” I cut him off, “No one can know you’re helping me.” I put both hands up, fingers cocked in formation to make the inside of my room look very different, when those Warlocks break in the door.
“Emery…” Hoster hesitates.
“Go on. Out,” I issue with an authority shamelessly borrowed from Dalshaks before me. I’ll be whoever I have to be, to keep Helena away from those jackals. Hoster’s astral eyes give me one last forlorn look, then dissolve along with the rest of him. The doorknob jiggles. I brace my elbows to twist reality in so wicked a knot, I might not find my way out. Then a hand squeezes my shoulder. The only hand that could stay mine, at the moment.
“Emery, no,” Helena tells me. She gives me no choice, when she shoulders around me just as the door pops open. The Warlocks step in, hands shimmering with flame. They expect a fight, but are so much more disarmed by the willing Helena separating me from them. The Warlocks lower their hands the second they see her so complacent. They aren’t afraid of me at all. Helena is their big, bad wolf. All that stops my hands is the look she turns back to give me. Please, swirls around her huge, teary eyes. “You’ve done too much for me already.”
My mouth hangs open to answer, but every word is tied to another, all the way down my throat to the pit of my stomach. I can’t hope to get it all out. So I stare, dumbfounded, as the Warlocks walk Helena outside and slam the door. That’s it, I try to swallow, at the same time my mind screams that it can’t be. My hands refuse to drop. They won’t accept that I let her just walk out. I’m alone. At least, for about five seconds. Then Mother prods my mind again. I’m about ready to take her invitation, just to close her new illusory space around her neck like a noose. The absolute last thing I want to deal with right now is Mother’s ire.
